Ann: "I booked us to zipline at Bachelor!"
Ed: "I'm terrified!"
I have a real and at times debilitating fear of heights and sight unseen, the idea of ziplining at Mt. Bachelor was almost triggering. I managed to put it out of my mind for a few weeks, but as the date crept up on us, I started fretting again and I didn't sleep much the night before, not that I ever do, perhaps in response to my fear. Recently, I am not sleeping well because we have had to keep our windows closed and I am used to having them open.
Earlier in the week, I honestly expected our zip tour to be postponed. Mt. Bachelor stands not more than 15 miles northeast of the raging Cedar Creek Fire. With the prevailing wind out of the west and southwest, the smoke from that fire had been thick and terrible enough to close down most outdoor activities in our entire area. Sunday was horrendous and Monday was only slightly better. We stayed indoors on Tuesday but were able to get out for a little while on Wednesday in spite of the pervasive smell of smoke.
Each morning over the past couple of weeks, we have awakened to read the morning briefing on the fire which is destroying gorgeous country near and dear to us. We have been shocked to watch it grow from 4000 acres to over 90,000 acres in just a few days, jumping all control boundaries and wreaking havoc. Despite this, by Thursday morning, we still had not received a call from Mt. Bachelor to reschedule our zip tour. Quite to the contrary, Ann received a confirmation/reminder email. Our timing was fortunate: our guide at Bachelor told us that all zip tours were cancelled on the weekend.
We just had time to get our coffee on board before we had to leave for the mountain. My stomach was in minor turmoil all during coffee and I kept telling myself to man up and enjoy the experience.
Our trip out of town on Century Blvd was, in a word, surreal. Just starting to head out of town towards Tetherow stands a big sign with mileage to the principal sights along Cascade Lakes Highway. Although I knew that the highway was closed on the back side of Bachelor to let the more than 1800 firefighters do what they could do to contain the fire, I really wasn't expecting there also to be a large portable message board reading "Hwy Closed at Hosmer Lake."
Usually, Cascade Lakes Highway is a busy road, busy with people coming and going to Bachelor and the lakes in pursuit of the fantastic recreation opportunities that this part of Central Oregon offers. Our vehicle was one of the very few (less than five) private vehicles on the road. Out towards Bachelor, we would encounter other vehicles, each from agencies involved in fighting the massive fire.
I really felt guilty about going out to play at a time when and at a location where all these awesome firefighters were struggling to keep the rest of us safe. If we had not booked our tickets long in advance, we would not have gone out to Bachelor, one of whose parking lots is the incident command post and staging area for the eastern side of the fire.
Each of the snow parks on the way to Bachelor now serves as a staging area for firefighters and the sheer amount of tents, vehicles, and construction equipment that we saw as we passed the parks was stunning. And yet, counterintuitively and wholly differently from each day in the recent past, the sky was bright blue and we could see the sun for the first time in more than a week.
In short order, we arrived at the nearly deserted West Village parking lot and, in a vast change from the recent temperatures pushing into the upper 90s, when we got out of the car, we were struck by the temperature near 40 coupled with a brisk wind. I quickly put on my down vest and a beanie, the first time I've been bundled up against the cold in months.
 |
| Bundled Up Against the Wind |
We went inside to check in and the woman checking us in told us that the temperature up on the hill at the start of the course was 41 degrees. Good thing I brought a pair of thin gloves to ward off the added wind chill from screaming down the hill. After a quick restroom break, impossible once you're fitted into a harness, we headed out back for our briefing held near the bottom landing pad for the course.
Standing behind West Village Lodge between the Pine Marten and Little Pine lifts, we got our first view of the mountains in a couple weeks. And even with a little smoke haze and low cloud cover, they were picturesque to the point I regretted that I couldn't bring the big camera. And despite being limited to taking photos between runs, we managed to get some decent enough pictures between our two phones.
Our group of eight riders and three guides gradually assembled over fifteen minutes or so and we all waited for the group before us, the first of the day, to finish their safety briefing and head over to the pint-sized introductory zip line which drops a whole 10 feet over 125 feet. As we watched the group ahead of us get hooked, two by two, onto the test line, we could see the dual zip lines for the final stage of the three-stage tour running overhead to the landing platform by the Little Pine Lift. Nobody was yet on the course, so we had no clue how fast we would be screaming over this section of the tour.
 |
Test Run Landing Platform
with Final Stage Zip Line Overhead |
We got to see one pair of riders putter down the test run before it was our time to head inside and receive our safety briefing and get fitted with a harness, a backpack, and a helmet. And then, after a dozen reminders to keep our hands away from the cables, we headed over to the test platform to have our uneventful test rides, perhaps four or five feet off the ground. We had to stop halfway down the course to check out the brakes and then we continued on to the landing platform. I couldn't get enough momentum with that little drop in the cable and could barely reach the landing platform. I would overcompensate on the next run!
 |
Gear Laid out for Each Rider,
Sized According to Information Supplied When Registering |
 |
| Ann All Kitted Out and Ready for Test Run |
Ann and I were in the second of four groups to go down the test platform and we would stay in that position until the last stage when we went first, the first idiots down the craziest stage of the course. Nothing so far had triggered my fear and I was pretty relaxed as we waited at the end of the platform for the guides to remove our trollies from the cable and stow them in our backpacks for the trip up the hill. In a sign of things to come, we had to wait for a few minutes for everyone to finish their test run. Up on the course, the action takes mere seconds, punctuated by long waits between stages.
 |
| Riding the Ski Lift to the Top |
With everyone finished, we would take the Pine Marten lift up to about 7800 feet and the platform for the first stage. Compared to the fast quad lifts that I have been on in the past, this lift creeps up the hill taking 12 minutes to reach the top. For whatever reason, ski lifts have never triggered my fear of heights and I enjoyed looking at the glorious scenery around us. Once up top, we made the very short walk over to the base of the first platform.
 |
| Gulp! The First Platform |
After a few minutes of waiting at the base of the first platform for the group ahead of us to go while trying to ignore the churning in my stomach, it was suddenly our turn and I had my first "Oh shit!" moment as I stepped onto the platform to be hooked to the real zip line, not the toy line we had experienced earlier. Up on top of the platform, I could really hear the screaming of the trollies of the first group as they raced down the course. The high pitch scream did nothing to settle my stomach.
I only had a brief moment of terror on the platform before it was on and I was flying down the course with Ann. And within seconds we were at the Slow Down flag near the landing and I applied the brakes much more gently than on the test course where I almost failed to reach the platform. Naturally, I rammed into the bumper springs at the end of the cable faster than the tour guides and I wanted to, but no harm, no foul. The ride was over so quickly that I had no time to get scared while dropping 255 feet over about a third of a mile. In fact, I was amped and ready to go again. This zip line thing was turning out to be a blast!
 |
| Looking Back Where We Started, 550 Yards Distant |
 |
| Waiting to Go on the Second Stage |
 |
| Clouds Over South Sister |
 |
| We Played Cornhole Waiting on the Second Run |
 |
Looking at the Stage 2 Landing, 550 Yards Distant
Todd Lake in Background |
The second stage was pretty much identical in drop and length to the first and was over just as quickly. On this run, I experienced a little twisting on the cable and figured out how to correct it by moving my legs a bit. I came into the platform very slowly as a result of my semi-crash landing on the prior run. Ann screamed by me as I slowed for a landing. I was disappointed with the lack of speed as I crawled into the landing. At this point, I was really looking forward to the last pitch which drops 866 feet over two-thirds of a mile.
 |
| Selfie Queen Waiting for Final Run |
 |
| The Resulting Selfie |
 |
| South Sister and Broken Top Looking Splendid |
 |
| Looking at the Stage 3 Landing, Broken Top, and Dutchman Flats |
Our group decided to shuffle things up and Ann and I ended up leading the parade down the final pitch. I am not going to lie: looking down the course from the platform is a real gut check. From our position at the top of the steps, Ann and I could see the final guide from the previous group make his solo run down the cable, screaming down the hill in a blur. At the top, he was talking about going for the speed record and once he hit the bottom, we heard the call over the radio, "86.8!" Yeah, that's nearly 90 miles per hour screaming down the hill.
Next thing you know, Ann and I are flying down the hill way in excess of any highway speed limit and the feeling of acceleration is totally exhilarating. I got a bit twisted at a couple of points thanks to some big gusts of wind and that really slowed my run down, my body acting like a big sail. As I corrected the spins, I saw Ann flying past me and I was jealous as I accelerated for all I was worth to catch her. That only lasted a second or two before I had to jam on the brakes, a bit too late. I managed to ram the springs at the end of the cable pretty well.
After returning our gear to the start, it was beer o'clock so we grabbed the lift back to the Pine Marten Lodge to see what they had on tap and to grab some lunch, neither of us having eaten breakfast.
 |
| Riding the Lift to Get a Beer |
 |
| Going Up: the Red Cinder Cone on the North Flank |
The lodge was pretty much deserted given that it was mid-week and off-season with sketchy smoke conditions keeping people away. The café had a very slim selection of draft beer. The menu looked overpriced and uninspired, so we drank our beer, walked on the deck outside for a few minutes and then headed back down the hill to get lunch and a real fresh hop beer somewhere in town, it being the beginning of fresh hop season.
No comments:
Post a Comment